System and method for an adaptive search engine using domain social networking data

ABSTRACT

An engine, system and method for a domain social network that interconnects Internet users with at least domains owned by or of interest to those Internet users, and that may obtain and/or forward obtained dynamic data regarding those domains automatically, such as by web service or email service. The dynamic data may be used to filter and protect content and data of the respective domains, to protect users by identifying low quality web pages or malicious software or pages, to isolate or improve search results regarding the domain, and/or to improve Internet-based transaction flow, such as the creation of advertising.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/859,899, filed Jan. 2, 2018, which is a continuation of U.S.application Ser. No. 15/705,869, filed Sep. 15, 2017, now abandoned,which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/277,610, filedSep. 27, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,813,513, which is a continuation ofU.S. application Ser. No. 13/661,943, filed Oct. 26, 2012, now U.S. Pat.No. 9,462,067, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 61/551,673, filed Oct. 26, 2011, U.S. ProvisionalPatent Application Ser. No. 61/553,657, filed Oct. 31, 2011, and U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/553,989, filed Nov. 1, 2011,the entireties of which are incorporated by reference herein.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to data being tracked and provided inrelation to Internet browsing, and, more particularly, to an engine,system and method of providing a domain social network having businessintelligence logic.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The term “Web 2.0” is commonly associated with web applications thatfacilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability,user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web (WWW, alsoreferred to hereinafter as the Internet or a network, further includesintranet, extranet, and the like). Web 2.0 thus necessarily includesaspects of connecting non-virtual identity to virtual identity on theWWW using a data feed comprised of data relationships and business anddata intelligence. As used hereinthroughout, and unless otherwise noted,the term “identity” is defined to include non-virtual and/or virtualaspects of a person interacting on, with, or with others on, the WWW.using a social network platform such as the Facebook platform maygenerate activities, events, and the like, as indicated from therespective Facebook account associated with each respective identity.Once generated, the Facebook platform may automatically feed friends'activities, events, and the like to third person friends of theidentity, such as when such activities or events are occurring or haveoccurred.

However, Facebook connects persons to persons, or persons/entities (suchas businesses) to person/entities. Facebook does not provide anyinterconnection for domains associated with those persons or entities.Thus, in typical social environments such as Facebook, persons/entitiesgenerate and receive the data. That is, the Facebook platform feeds datato and from the friends identified as being associated with eachidentity. Needless to say, data generated in this way, and absent datamonitoring regarding domain names associated with the persons/entitieson Facebook, severely limits the usefulness of the data generated bysuch typical social sites—particularly for advertising purposes, forexample.

Further, there are over 200 million domains as of 2010, and over 1.8billion web users. These users are running approximately 15 billion websearches a year, which leads each user to 2-3 unknown websites per day,on average. Such websites, if unknown to the user and without any wayfor the user to have a trusted party (such as a social network friend,or a trusted domain) that indicates the acceptability of the unknownsite, may pose a risk to users, such as an increased likelihood ofphishing or providing malware.

Thus, there is a need for a “domain social network” that interconnectsdata regarding identities (i.e., persons/entities) to data regardingdomains. More particularly, there is a need for an engine, system andmethod to generate domain data using, and that itself provides businessintelligence logic, wherein data is related, such as for sales,advertising or trustworthiness, purposes, to an identity's activity.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides an engine, system and method for a domainsocial network that interconnects Internet users with at least domainsowned by or of interest to those Internet users, and that may obtainand/or forward obtained dynamic data regarding those domainsautomatically, such as by web service or email service. The dynamic datamay be used to filter and protect content and data of the respectivedomains, to protect users by identifying low quality web pages ormalicious software or pages, to isolate or improve search resultsregarding the domain, and/or to improve Internet-based transaction flow,such as the creation of advertising.

It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description andthe following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory, andare intended to provide further explanation of the invention asdiscussed herein throughout.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings are included to provide a furtherunderstanding of the disclosed embodiments. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing system for use inaccordance with herein described systems and methods;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an exemplary networked computingenvironment for use in accordance with herein described systems andmethods;

FIG. 3 is an illustration of aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is an illustration of aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is an illustration of aspects of the present invention; and

FIG. 6 is an illustration of aspects of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is an illustration of an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is an illustration of a capture aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is an illustration of an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 10 is an illustration of an aspect of the present invention; and

FIG. 11 is an illustration of an aspect of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A computer-implemented platform and methods of use are disclosed thatprovide networked access to a plurality of types of digital content,including but not limited to video, audio, and document content, andthat track and deliver the accessed content. Described embodiments areintended to be exemplary and not limiting. As such, it is contemplatedthat the herein described systems and methods can be adapted to providemany types of users with access and delivery of many types of domaindata, and can be extended to provide enhancements and/or additions tothe exemplary services described. The invention is intended to includeall such extensions. Reference will now be made in detail to variousexemplary and illustrative embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary computing system 100 that can be used inaccordance with herein described system and methods. Computing system100 is capable of executing software, such as an operating system (OS)and a variety of computing applications 190. The operation of exemplarycomputing system 100 is controlled primarily by computer readableinstructions, such as instructions stored in a computer readable storagemedium, such as hard disk drive (HDD) 115, optical disk (not shown) suchas a CD or DVD, solid state drive (not shown) such as a USB “thumbdrive,” or the like. Such instructions may be executed within centralprocessing unit (CPU) 110 to cause computing system 100 to performoperations. In many known computer servers, workstations, personalcomputers, and the like, CPU 110 is implemented in an integrated circuitcalled a processor.

It is appreciated that, although exemplary computing system 100 is shownto comprise a single CPU 110, such description is merely illustrative ascomputing system 100 may comprise a plurality of CPUs 110. Additionally,computing system 100 may exploit the resources of remote CPUs (notshown), for example, through communications network 170 or some otherdata communications means.

In operation, CPU 110 fetches, decodes, and executes instructions from acomputer readable storage medium such as HDD 115. Such instructions canbe included in software such as an operating system (OS), executableprograms, and the like. Information, such as computer instructions andother computer readable data, is transferred between components ofcomputing system 100 via the system's main data-transfer path. The maindata-transfer path may use a system bus architecture 105, although othercomputer architectures (not shown) can be used, such as architecturesusing serializers and deserializers and crossbar switches to communicatedata between devices over serial communication paths. System bus 105 caninclude data lines for sending data, address lines for sendingaddresses, and control lines for sending interrupts and for operatingthe system bus. Some busses provide bus arbitration that regulatesaccess to the bus by extension cards, controllers, and CPU 110. Devicesthat attach to the busses and arbitrate access to the bus are called busmasters. Bus master support also allows multiprocessor configurations ofthe busses to be created by the addition of bus master adapterscontaining processors and support chips.

Memory devices coupled to system bus 105 can include random accessmemory (RAM) 125 and read only memory (ROM) 130. Such memories includecircuitry that allows information to be stored and retrieved. ROMs 130generally contain stored data that cannot be modified. Data stored inRAM 125 can be read or changed by CPU 110 or other hardware devices.Access to RAM 125 and/or ROM 130 may be controlled by memory controller120. Memory controller 120 may provide an address translation functionthat translates virtual addresses into physical addresses asinstructions are executed. Memory controller 120 may also provide amemory protection function that isolates processes within the system andisolates system processes from user processes. Thus, a program runningin user mode can normally access only memory mapped by its own processvirtual address space; it cannot access memory within another process'virtual address space unless memory sharing between the processes hasbeen set up.

In addition, computing system 100 may contain peripheral controller 135responsible for communicating instructions using a peripheral bus fromCPU 110 to peripherals, such as printer 140, keyboard 145, and mouse150. An example of a peripheral bus is the Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (PCI) bus.

Display 160, which is controlled by display controller 155, can be usedto display visual output generated by computing system 100. Such visualoutput may include text, graphics, animated graphics, and/or video, forexample. Display 160 may be implemented with a CRT-based video display,an LCD-based flat-panel display, gas plasma-based flat-panel display,touch-panel, or the like. Display controller 155 includes electroniccomponents required to generate a video signal that is sent to display160.

Further, computing system 100 may contain network adapter 165 which maybe used to couple computing system 100 to an external communicationnetwork 170, which may include or provide access to the Internet, andhence which may provide or include tracking of and access to the domaindata discussed herein. Communications network 170 may provide useraccess to computing system 100 with means of communicating andtransferring software and information electronically. For example, usersmay communicate with computing system 100 using communication means suchas email, direct data connection, virtual private network (VPN), Skypeor other online video conferencing services, or the like. Additionally,communications network 170 may provide for distributed processing, whichinvolves several computers and the sharing of workloads or cooperativeefforts in performing a task. It is appreciated that the networkconnections shown are exemplary and other means of establishingcommunications links between computing system 100 and remote users maybe used.

It is appreciated that exemplary computing system 100 is merelyillustrative of a computing environment in which the herein describedsystems and methods may operate and does not limit the implementation ofthe herein described systems and methods in computing environmentshaving differing components and configurations, as the inventiveconcepts described herein may be implemented in various computingenvironments using various components and configurations.

As shown in FIG. 2, computing system 100 can be deployed in networkedcomputing environment 200. In general, the above description forcomputing system 100 applies to server, client, and peer computersdeployed in a networked environment, for example, server 205, laptopcomputer 210, and desktop computer 230. FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplaryillustrative networked computing environment 200, with a server incommunication with client computing and/or communicating devices via acommunications network, in which the herein described apparatus andmethods may be employed.

As shown in FIG. 2, server 205 may be interconnected via acommunications network 240 (which may include any of, or any combinationof, a fixed-wire or wireless LAN, WAN, intranet, extranet, peer-to-peernetwork, virtual private network, the Internet, or other communicationsnetwork such as POTS, ISDN, VoIP, PSTN, etc.) with a number of clientcomputing/communication devices such as laptop computer 210, wirelessmobile telephone 215, wired telephone 220, personal digital assistant225, user desktop computer 230, and/or other communication enableddevices (not shown). Server 205 can comprise dedicated servers operableto process and communicate data such as digital content 250 to and fromclient devices 210, 215, 220, 225, 230, etc. using any of a number ofknown protocols, such as hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), filetransfer protocol (FTP), simple object access protocol (SOAP), wirelessapplication protocol (WAP), or the like. Additionally, networkedcomputing environment 200 can utilize various data security protocolssuch as secured socket layer (SSL), pretty good privacy (PGP), virtualprivate network (VPN) security, or the like. Each client device 210,215, 220, 225, 230, etc. can be equipped with an operating systemoperable to support one or more computing and/or communicationapplications, such as a web browser (not shown), email (not shown), orthe like, to interact with server 205.

As used herein, the term “domain social network” is defined to includeany connecting of a non-virtual, or virtual, identity with an Internetdomain, such as based on ownership of or interests reflected on thedomain on a network 240. More particularly, a domain social network mayautomatically feed domain data regarding the domains followed by each ofthe afore-discussed identities, such as domain data regarding availablesocial media activities or events of likely interest to each of theidentities based on the followed domain(s), such as via web service oremail service, to the identities who follow those domains on a frontend, and to the domains that are followed on a back end. The domaininformation, social media activities and performance events related tothe domain(s) followed by a particular identity may further generatebusiness intelligence as to the interests of that identity.

An Internet domain typically represents an identity, such as of abusiness, as well as the branding and reputation of that business. Assuch, a domain name constitutes a business asset. In some cases,reliance or trust placed in the brand associated with the domain nameasset may be used maliciously, such as by hackers or others who use thattrust to spread spam or viruses on the Internet.

Therefore, domain name owners need to protect and cultivate the use oftheir respective brands. In part, this cultivation necessitates thatdomain owners know the social media data and website performance dataregarding the owned domain(s), as well as that of competitive domains orrelated domains. It is highly desirable to know this social media dataand website performance data about domains of interest before making anyjudgment, or entering into any engagement, such as for advertising.Gaining this knowledge in advance regarding oneself, ones' competitors,and Internet third parties prior to entering into web-based engagements,is good Internet “citizenship,” at least in that learning about domainsand domain-related data before that data is used or shared with othershelps stem the spread of bad web pages, malicious software and viruses,spam, and the like, to users who have placed their respective trust inparticular domains.

Search engines and user-generated content platforms, such as Facebook orTwitter, could use domain-related data, if available, to value a domain,or an identity associated with a domain to filter and protect itscontent, data and users, such as in avoiding malicious or low qualitycontent, and for advertiser's purposes. However, prior to the advent ofthe present invention and its domain social network, search engines anduser-generated content platforms did not have access to such data.Rather, if such data was desired, one had to search for third party datatracking entities, and open one's site to allow such entity to track,piece-by-piece, the domain information desired. Thereafter, such datawould have to be manually searched in order to make use of it, and thismanual search would need to be repeated for each domain owned or inwhich there was interest.

The present invention provides an engine, system and method for a domainsocial network that interconnects Internet users with at least domainsowned or interested by those Internet users, and that may obtain and/orforward the dynamic data automatically, such as by web service or emailservice. The dynamic data may be used to filter and protect content anddata of the respective domains, to protect users by identifying lowquality web pages or malicious software or pages, to isolate or improvesearch results regarding the domain, and/or to improve Internet-baseddeal flow, such as advertising.

In order to provide this engine, system and method, the presentinvention may include a front end engine and a back end engine, asillustrated in FIG. 3. Each of the backend engine and the front endengine may be or include, as discussed hereinabove with respect to FIGS.1 and 2, at least one microprocessor, such as within a server, and atleast one access node to at least one network, such as the Internet.

The backend engine, which may take the exemplary format illustrated inFIG. 3, for example, may automatically crawl and collect publiclyavailable domain information, and may use that data to calculate adomain valuation (such as using a formula included in the aspects of thepresent invention) based on, for example, website traffic, number offollowers/favorites markers, searchable page numbers and domain age.

The backend may also, for example, analyze a domain's “adult attribute,”such as based on the domain link outs, keywords and the known adultattributes for certain domains. The backend may further compiledomain-competitor data. The accumulated domain information may begenerated, for example, as domain report data accessible to users. Theaccess to this domain report data may be exposed, for example, by abrowser bookmarklet, a browser add-on, or a domain social networkwebsite (hereinafter collectively “bookmarklet”) that may provide athin-client interface to reporting. Access may further include a vendorfeed, such as via an application programming interface (API).

The domain social network bookmarklet may thus be, graphically, afront-end feature that is an add-on to any web browser. As such, it maybe downloaded, or dragged and dropped or added via a favorites barwithout a software download. In short, the bookmarklet may allow for“social bookmarking,” that is, sharing of bookmarks with others, andindicating to domain owners whether a user has bookmarked the owneddomain (such as for marketing/sales purposes).

The bookmarklet may give the user peace of mind for an unknown website(such as by giving linkouts, keywords, and website physical location,for example), or may allow a user to follow a known domain (such as byindicating the domain, giving an option to follow, providing keywords,and providing competitors, for example), at the user's direction andupon production by the browser, for example. All such information may,of course, be accumulated by the back end for production by thebookmarklet front end.

Further, the providing of the bookmarklet may greatly enhance pageviews, and thus my contribute to, and allow the provider of thebookmarklet to obtain a share of, enhanced advertising revenue. Forexample, if the user requests the bookmarklet, such as by clicking“Track” on any given web page, the user may be enabled to “Check” thesite (to return or receive information from), “Like” the site (whichwill bring friends to the site), or “Share” the site (which will invitefriends to the site), based on the information provided in thebookmarklet. This increased traffic to the site will provide increasedad revenue correspondent thereto.

More particularly, and by way of non-limiting example, via thebookmarklet any Internet user may access the domain information from thebackend engine, such as by viewing any web page providing a “Check,” asdiscussed herein throughout. The Internet user may, by way ofnon-limiting example, indicate a “Like,” a “Share,” or a “Follow”action, such as to save any web page, share any web page to third party,and/or to follow the indicated domain in the domain social network.

The Check process may also trigger the backend engine to performbusiness intelligence social discovery and performance discovery, asdiscussed herein throughout. An increase in the number of users maythereby generate more discovery data and more domain information, thusincreasing the safety, knowledge, and hence enjoyment of all Internetusers, while additionally improving web-based economic transactions,such as advertising. Yet more particularly, the backend may generatesocial discovery data and performance data based on a data request, suchas, by way of non-limiting example, by way of a “Discover.”

A user may, such as via the front end, join the domain social network,and such joinder may include definition of the relationship with ownedor interested domains. This may, by way of non-limiting example, betermed a “Follow.” Further, to increase the convenience of a “Follow,” agroup name or tag may be assigned to followed domains.

As more particularly illustrated in FIG. 4, the backend system maygenerate domain information which may include valuation data and adultattribute data, and provide such information to the frontend. Thisinformation may be accessible by the user through the use of, forexample, the aforementioned browser add-on, bookmarklet, websiteservice, email service or phone service, such as by allowing certainaspects of the domain information to be presented to the user. A usermay also become a member of the domain social network so as to followparticular domains of interest, for example.

Thus, in a manner similar to that discussed herein for tracked sites,the front end bookmarklet may provide, either to a surfing user or adomain owner, critical information regarding the health of the domain.Users employing this feature may allow registered users to follow anydomain for its website information, ranking, competitive analysis, andperformance tracking, as well as for social discoveries about itsdomains. Again, information regarding these factors is accumulated bythe backend of the present invention, and provided to the front end.

As further illustrated in FIG. 4, the user may thereby be presented withmetrics relevant to the URL being visited or to be potentially viewed.In addition to tagging the URL in accordance with specific userpreferences, the user may be provided information regarding the title ofthe website, the amount of traffic to the website in a given period oftime, a summary correspondent to the content of the website, related orcompetitive websites to the one of interest, a listing of websites whicha referenced or “link out” from the site of interest, and the websiteorigination location, for example.

The backend system further has discovery capabilities, such as forsocial discovery and performance discovery. Accumulated domaininformation and discovery data may feed to domain social network membersautomatically, such as by web service, email service or phone service.Domain information data may further feed to third parties by API.

The backend may collect each domain's identity information, trafficinformation, link outs, link ins, following or favorites marking, andadult attribute data, and may therefrom calculate domain valuation basedon traffic data, searchable page data and domain age data. For example,domain age (based on year number) may be a weighted factor in thevaluation. Domain age of less than one year may be weighted at less than1.0, wherein a lower valuation represents a lower popularity. Forexample, a domain age of less than a certain period, such as threemonths, may be particularly risky for Internet users. As such, a websitehaving a lower valuation that requests user information may pose aparticular risk to the user. If that web page provides a majority of itslinkouts to a targeted website, then the risk to the user that the pageis a phishing or scam page for the target website is even higher. Whensuch high risk web pages are detected, the alert data of that high riskmay be sent to the domain owner of the targeted website if it joinsdomain social network. Likewise, individual users may be informed of thehigh risk of the web page.

A user may login to the domain social network to check the alert data atanytime, for example. Alternatively, the alert data may be batchupdated, such as daily. The user may check alert data for a specificdomain, or may group several domains together and check alert data forthat group. For example, a web message (such as a Tweet®) may include aweb page link to a domain having a very new domain age, or an adult tag,or a low domain valuation, this data indicated by the performancediscovery, and/or indicated by an alert, may preclude addition of thisdomain to search engine results, such as to avoid mass spread of apotentially harmful web page across Internet users.

This “performance discovery” may be executed from at least one cloudcomputing platform, such as in multiple regions. Periodically, such asonce an hour, the backends from multiple regions may read the mostpopular pages from a domain to calculate its loading time and page size.The down time of specific web pages may also be calculated. For example,in an embodiment of performance discovery, web page size data may beread, and if it is similar to a previous checkup, a quick loading timecalculation may indicate acceptable performance without reading the fullweb page data. This may significantly reduce bandwidth usage butnevertheless maintain reliable checkups. In another embodiment ofperformance discovery, if a domain report has not been used by any usersfor a period of time (thus indicating that the domain is not popular),the loading time checkup may continuously use the aforementioned quickloading time checkup, such as by reading only the header data of the webpage and calculating loading time or down time.

A user who joins the domain social network of the present invention mayuse an email address for identification and for completing thevalidation process. User IDs may also be incorporated from other socialnetworks approved by the user and/or associated with the identifiedemail address, for example. As would be known to those skilled in theart, third party social network platforms already associated with theuser, and in particular with the user's email address, for example, maybe queried and associated with the user of the present invention.

Once associated with the present invention, a registered user may followany number of selected domain names. The user may also receive reportsproviding information about the followed web site(s), which may furtherinclude information about related websites and the interactions betweenthird party users and the related websites. Similarly, a user may followusers within the system and may be provided information about that andother users' internet activity.

As illustrated in FIG. 4, for example, a user who is following at leastone additional user may be provided information related to what website(s) were visited, the duration of each visit, the content accessed,the relation between the visited websites (and to the bookmarked websites of the following or followed user), and/or the content availableor bookmarked from the internet. A user may refine such information bylimiting the presented information to various keywords matches, forexample.

A user may also claim ownership of a domain through a validation processadministered through the present invention, and may thereby gain accessto a data or additional data related thereto. For example, domain ownersmay provide trademark and/or keyword data related to branding forinclusion with a user's alert data. However, some alert data may only beprovided to the domain owner.

As described previously herein, a social bookmarklet or browser add-onmay allow a user to reach a marked web page from any web browser in anyweb device (computer, tablet, smart phone, etc). The present inventionmay, for example, cause a popup window to display information having atleast basic domain information related to a current web page. The samewindow may also provide information related to the Like, Share, and/orFollow features discussed herein, and may trigger social discovery datafrom a current web page, such as via the backend engine through to otherusers. As such, the present invention may provide a portable aspect,such as a widget, that may provide the data and inventive elements forusers as discussed herein. Further, a unification of followed page datamay be thereby provided.

As illustrated in FIG. 5, social discovery from a web page may befacilitated through the filtering of web page content and/or with theuse of business intelligence logic to connect the web page informationto the related domain. For example, the social discovery functionalityof the present invention may allow a web page to contain a web linkwhose display text has the domain name and link to such domain, whichmay be provided to the user as related to the user's metrics whethersuch metrics are inputted by the user or calculated by the presentinvention based on the user's interne activity.

Social discovery data for domains may be represented using keywordsindicating business intelligence rules. For example, a user may follow akeyword instead of a domain name, and in such a case the presentinvention may use domain information data to get the most matched domainlist for that keyword. By way of example, the keyword “spyware” may belinked to one set of domains that have the most high valuation with“spyware” in their respective domain information data (i.e., in theirrespective domain name, title, description, keywords, etc.). The socialdiscovery data for such keyword may then be converted to obtainingsocial discovery for the indicated domain list.

In a further exemplary embodiment illustrated in FIG. 6, a user maycompile a certain subset of Check gathered information to determinewhether a particular website meets the criteria the user has set, suchas, for example, the website's popularity or overall access safety. Suchinformation may include, for example, the topics covered by the website,the name of the website, the ranking provided by correlating third partyusage, the number or ranking with respect to followers or favoritemarkers, a latest news posting, a social network posting related to thewebsite, and/or the time between visits to the website by the user or athird party associated with the user, such as in the user's socialnetwork. Having such information available to the user may allow theuser to make a determination as to the fitness and utility of the targetwebsite. Such information may also allow a user to qualify theusefulness of a website without ever having actually landed on or beenavailed to the direct content of the particular website.

A user may also allow certain third party posts about particularwebsites to be displayed in the user's access panel. Such posts mayprovide a social network wherein the user may access opinion and contentoffered by the poster about the website of interest. Although suchinformation may be included in the overall ranking associated with thewebsite of interest, third party posts may include more detailedinformation and may allow the user to make a more refined decision as tothe quality of the web site.

For example, a commenting user may provide a link to the web site beingcommented upon and may include a statement from original authorship orcopy and paste some prior created content—whether directly from the website being commented on or related content from a third party source. Inany event, the present invention may also associate with the postinformation related to the web site, such as, for example, the rankingof the web site and an indication of when the post was created.

As further illustrated in FIG. 6, an alert may be based on user groupeddomains to present the latest down time data and latest social discoverydata. Similarly, an alert may send an email once a day to a domain userfor latest social discovery data based on user followed domains and maysend instant communications to a domain user when detected down timebased on used followed domains.

Additionally, FIG. 7 is an illustration of the following of a domain(symantec.com in this case), and the obtaining of social discovery dataand domain information related thereto. This information may be shared,in accordance with the present invention, such as by email, with otherusers who may read the social discovery data and elect to also followthe domain. Thereby, the present invention provides viral marketing ofthe domain. Further, in this exemplary embodiment, the social discoverydata may reveal the discovery by the domain of a security flaw and dataleak by a third party website, and multiple media websites with a linkto the domain. Thus, the story may be cached by the backend and linkedto the domain.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the user of the system mayprovide a search term which may return results from a user associatedsocial network or domain traffic list. The use of a limited data setassociated with the users may allow for a more reliable and/or relevantreturn of search results. For example, by calling domain social networkdata associated with the user, the user initiated search may obtain thebest matched domain result. The data may, for example, be ordered bytraffic ranking or by social recommendations. Such socialrecommendations may be made by linking to social networks associatedwith the user and may record and/or review prior activity by the userand/or third party users further associated with the user.

Searching in the present embodiment may be facilitated by any knownsearch engine, such as, for example Bing® and Google®, and may utilizeany accessible domain listing as a searching source to obtain matchedweb content links as correlated to the entered search term. Further, thesearch functionality of the present invention provides more than meremanual search, as described herein, the search functionality includesthe searching of cached information monitored by a particular topic orsearch term(s) for a determined period of time. Similarly, the searchmay include web content available only from dedicated domains.

The present invention may further employ at least one web crawler toreturn web content links, analyze the web content associated with user'ssearch term, and take at least one screenshot for the matched web page.As illustrated in FIG. 8, a time-marked screen shot may be taken of atleast one page of returned website and may be cached within a systemaccessible database. The present invention may further highlight orotherwise make known to a user which terms within the returned web pageprovided the basis for the return of the page. In an embodiment of thepresent invention and as illustrated in FIG. 8, the search term(s) usedby the user may be highlighted and the ranking of returned results maybe based off of, for example, the frequency of such term(s) within thereturned webpage.

Thus, the present invention may allow for deep searching with screencapture which may allow a user to visually “tune up” search results toadapt to the best search source. This process may be automated and mayallow for an optimization report to be generated which may include, forexample, at least one returned result and the number of term(s) and/orterm frequency identified. Automated searching and/or optimization maybe continuous and/or set to a predetermined time frame such as, forexample, hourly and/or daily. Similarly, as would be appreciated bythose skilled in the art, the present invention may broaden the searchscope of a particular search term by allowing for near and like term(s)to be included in the search results.

In an embodiment of the present invention, a GUI may be provided tofacilitate the automatic return of results and presenting of resultsfrom a high value search source. As illustrated in FIG. 9, a toolbar maybe incorporated in to a web browser to allow the user ready access tothe functionality of the present invention. In addition to allowing auser to enter a free form search term(s), the present invention may alsogroup searches and/or results by category and provide access to suchgroups using a single click button. For example, returned results mayinclude at least one travel related website. To increase searchingefficiencies, the present invention may group at least one returnedresult with other third party resources, including domains associatedwith user social network association, under a single “travel” tab.Clicking on this tab may return immediate results, such as those mostrecently returned, or may provide an additional search interface whichmay further provide the user with the opportunity to free form search orclick on links representing previously returned results related totravel, for example.

The present invention may, for example, as illustrated in FIG. 10,provide a multi-tab browser GUI and may present at least one reportregarding a particular keyword(s) or domain name(s). Such a site report,as described herein, may provide a website valuation based on thewebsite's traffic ranking, searchable pages and domain name history.Similarly, a keyword report may be provided showing the at least onekeyword list associated with a particular website and may allowcomparisons to other websites having the same or similar keyword(s).

By way of specific example, the present invention may provide a linkreport which may provide information related to what a particular website link to, as well as what the web site links in. An intelligencereport may provide information related to what web sites share the sameIP address(es) and which web sites have the same title and/ordescription, such as mirror sites, for example. The present inventionmay also provide competitive reports based on similarities between websites, such as in relation to key words and/or images used.

Further, a domain connection report may provide an accounting of whichweb sites have the same third party provider accounts, such as, forexample, accounts with Google® and GoDaddy®, and/or which web sites havethe same or similar title and/or description data in home page.

The present invention may also allow for real-time reporting which mayallow a user to very quickly search or browse various websites toidentify at least one which may meet their needs. By way of non-limitingexample, when browsing to a particular web page, the present inventionmay provide, through a bottom panel window, for example, the web sitetitle, description, keyword(s), linked out web site address and relatedweb sites. The present invention may also allow the user to make sociallink to any given web page through social media links to, for example,Facebook® and Twitter®, through a one click activation feature, forexample.

Thus, in an embodiment of the present invention, a desktop program maybe providing having at least the features described herein above.Through the local program, a user may authenticate and/or connect to auser controlled social network site, such as Facebook® and Twitter®, forexample, and may further employ at least a second set of privacy and/orprotection rules to both the local machine and the social network site.For example, through a “connection lock,” the user may change aFacebook® profile and remove/restrict access to certain sites through orfrom Facebook®. Further, the local program may allow for each socialwebsite to be provided a dedicated and distinct set of rules which mayfurther be displayed in discrete windows. Similarly, information relatedto the user and the social network site may be displayed. Suchinformation may include, for example, interaction history,interconnections between a social network site and third party sites,and authorized and/or blocked sites according to the rules set by atleast one user.

For example, the local program may allow a parent to view the activityof a child on the child's Facebook® page and may further allow theparent to control access to other sites navigable through Facebook®. Theparents may also view and restrict third party cookies, embedded linksand/or tracking programs which follow and/or are availed of the child'spage, for example. The present invention may additionally group suchthird party websites and tracking devices and provide characterizationssuch as “safe”, “unsafe”, “naughty” and/or “nice,” for example. As wouldbe apparent to one skilled in the art, the classification given togrouped URLs may take any form and/or rating and may be based onkeyword(s) within the URL and/or on comparison to a known list of URLsconstructed to provide a predetermined listing of URLs of a specificclassification.

In an embodiment of the present invention, at lest one keyword(s) may beentered to search web pages in the past, current and future,automatically. Returned results may be viewed in a calendar and/ortimeline format or by discovery/search term defined by the user. In anysearch, safe mode may be entered to block unwanted content, such as, forexample, adult content. The present invention may also support proxysettings which may allow a user to make private returned results,searching queries, and/or browsing. As illustrated in FIG. 11, thepresent invention may further provide a developer tool GUI to betterfacilitate the embodiments described herein.

For example, the present invention may allow an entity to monitor awebsite and/or traffic for privacy and content alerts. Use of thepresent invention may be provided on a subscription basis and may, forexample, be subscribed to for $39 per month per subscription.Alternatively, the present invention may be accessed through an annualsubscription, such as, for example, $99 per year. As user may then havethe ability to 1) track competitor social data; 2) track locations ofusers; 3) track price history of various products and/or services; and4) enable convenient protection of email and social network accounts.

Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the herein describedsystems and methods are susceptible to various modifications andalternative constructions. There is no intention to limit the scope ofthe invention to the specific constructions described herein. Rather,the herein described systems and methods are intended to cover allmodifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling withinthe scope and spirit of the invention and its equivalents.

I claim:
 1. A computer-implemented method for improving Internet-basedtransaction flow in a domain social network, with at least one computingdevice, the method comprising the steps of: creating the domain socialnetwork by interconnecting a plurality of users with a plurality offirst and second domains; obtaining dynamic data from a service;filtering the plurality of first and second domains based on the dynamicdata; providing social discovery data of the filtered plurality of firstand second domains in response to receiving, from at least one of theplurality of users, a social discovery data request; and displaying theprovided social discovery data on a display to the requesting one of theplurality of users.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:generating, based on the filtering, domain report data for each of theplurality of first and second domains; and displaying the domain reportdata along with the social discovery data to the at least one of theplurality of users.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the dynamic dataidentifies low quality content.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein thedynamic data identifies malicious content.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the service is a web service or an e-mail service.
 6. The methodof claim 1, wherein the social discovery data comprises at least one ofthe following: domain valuation data, adult attribute data, domainhealth data, domain ranking, domain competitive analysis, and domainperformance tracking data.
 7. A computer program product embodied on anon-transitory computer readable medium, the product comprisinginstructions when executed by a processor implement a method forimproving domain search results in a domain social network, the methodcomprising: creating the domain social network by interconnecting aplurality of users with a plurality of first and second domains;obtaining dynamic data from a service; filtering the plurality of firstand second domains based on the dynamic data; providing social discoverydata of the filtered plurality of first and second domains in responseto receiving, from at least one of the plurality of users, a socialdiscovery data request; and displaying the provided social discoverydata on a display to the requesting one of the plurality of users. 8.The product of claim 7, further comprising: generating, based on thefiltering, domain report data for each of the plurality of first andsecond domains; and displaying the domain report data to the user. 9.The product of claim 7, wherein the dynamic data identifies low qualitycontent.
 10. The product of claim 7, wherein the dynamic data identifiesmalicious content.
 11. The product of claim 7, wherein the service is aweb service.
 12. The product of claim 7, wherein the service is ane-mail service.
 13. The product of claim 7, wherein the social discoverydata comprises at least one of the following: domain valuation data,adult attribute data, domain health data, domain ranking, domaincompetitive analysis, and domain performance tracking data.
 14. A systemfor improving domain search results in a domain social network, thesystem comprising: a computer comprising a memory communicativelycoupled to at least one processor, the computer configured to: createthe domain social network by interconnecting a plurality of users with aplurality of first and second domains; obtain dynamic data from aservice; filter the plurality of first and second domains based on thedynamic data; provide social discovery data of the filtered plurality offirst and second domains in response to the reception of, from at leastone of the plurality of users, a social discovery data request; anddisplay the provided social discovery data on a display to therequesting one of the plurality of users.
 15. The system of claim 14,wherein the computer is further configured to: generate, based on thefiltering, domain report data for each of the plurality of first andsecond domains; and display the domain report data to the user.
 16. Thesystem of claim 14, wherein the dynamic data identifies low qualitycontent.
 17. The system of claim 14, wherein the dynamic data identifiesmalicious content.
 18. The system of claim 14, wherein the service is aweb service.
 19. The system of claim 14, wherein the service is ane-mail service.
 20. The system of claim 14, wherein the social discoverydata comprises at least one of the following: domain valuation data,adult attribute data, domain health data, domain ranking, domaincompetitive analysis, and domain performance tracking data.